Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Accomplishments
Affiliations
Timeline
Generic

Zachary Johnston

Springfield,OH

Summary

Small business owner and artist with 18 years of management experience in a professional setting. Skillfully creates and maintains professional and loyal relationships with peers, clients, investors and co-workers. Comfortable working independently as manager and leader and as collaborative team member. Applies business acumen and experience and exercises decisive judgment to achieve the best possible results.

Overview

23
23
years of professional experience

Work History

Member Owner

Lifebar, LLC
Springfield, OH
08.2023 - Current

I share an equal third ownership of Lifebar, LLC. We're currently in the process of opening a brick-and-mortar business in downtown Springfield, OH that will include a bar, arcade, pre-packaged gourmet ramen offerings, and clothing retail. Some of the responsibilities of my current role (or actions taken while I've held the position) include:

• Drafting a Multi-Member LLC operating agreement
• Compiling data from business partners and rolling it into our formal business plan
• Presenting our business plan to lenders and investors
• Securing investor funding
• Meeting with investors to communicate updates
• Sourcing of Contractors, Firms and Agencies to coordinate the purchase and renovation of commercial real estate
• Design and printing of merchandise for retail our line

Client Relationship Manager

Assurant Specialty Property
Springfield, OH
10.2014 - 01.2023

My role in Client Services/Client Relations was to act as an intermediary between our operations teams, our account executives and our clients. Some of the responsibilities of this role included:

• Partnering with Sales, Client Contacts and Operations to facilitate and manage the onboarding of new clients and separation of clients when necessary.
• Scheduling, organizing and facilitating client meetings, maintaining minutes and recordings for those meetings, and pulling together emergency meetings as necessary
• Reviewing changes to industry standard and acting as point person for projects initiated as a result to changes in standard (for instance, Reg A/B, Dodd Frank Act, regulation related to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, etc.)
• Management and prevention of service creep
• Business travel for client trainings, implementations and annual business reviews
• Collection and compilation of data for our account executives' annual business reviews with our clients
• Reporting of SLAs, quality and customer concerns to the client
• Conflict resolution of issues arising with internal and/or external partners
• Identified issues or gaps within process and communicated them to the appropriate teams to ensure resolution
• Coordinated remedial efforts in the event of large-scale issues, inaccurate mailings, etc.
• Coordinated annual technical writing reviews of policy and procedure for individual clients
• Maintained a knowledge and understanding of client contracts and how our performance was scaled and what impacts would occur if our performance standards weren't met
• Ensured that our company's interests were protected in interactions with clients and in response to client requests.

Business Unit Manager

Assurant Specialty Property
Springfield, OH
09.2006 - 10.2014

Served as a unit manager for a variety of departments within the company, managing both small teams of under 15 people and large teams of over 40 people. Co-managed on teams of over 100 people. The various capacities under which I worked as unit manager are listed below:

• Data Processing
• Insurance Customer Care
• Tax Payment Processing
• Insurance Loss Drafts Customer Care
• Insurance Loss Drafts Processing
• Escalated Customer Management
• Data Validation

Within those roles, my responsibilities included, but were not limited to, the following:

• Management of data processing and call center service level objectives
• Daily, Weekly, and Monthly reporting of quality, productivity and service level objectives
• Coaching and mentoring team members, documenting and facilitating disciplinary action up to termination
• Coordinating with various teams to ensure business continuity
• Maintaining team morale
• Communicating with clients regarding action plans, service level concerns, and procedural updates/questions
• Acting as subject matter expert for policy and procedure updates, identifying and communicating when those updates were necessary, and working with Technical Writing to ensure publication
• Partner with data, ops and business analysts to communicate concerns with processing platforms and propose rule changes when necessary.

Call Center Team Lead

Assurant Specialty Property
Springfield, OH
03.2004 - 09.2006
  • Acted in a supervisor role (reporting to a Unit Manager) for a hybrid call center and data entry team, consisting of 15-20 team members on average
    • Monitored call center service levels to ensure client objectives were met or exceeded
    • Monitored document processing to ensure quality and productivity standards were met
    • Developed coaching and training materials
    • Periodically monitored calls for internal quality assurance, both live and recorded
    • Developed action plans in the event of below standard service level occurrence
    • Developed coaching plans for agents whose performance was below standard
    • Developed incentive plans for agents whose performance was above standard

Call Center Representative

Assurant Specialty Property
Springfield, OH
10.2001 - 03.2004

• Handling of insurance related calls for a variety of mortgage companies in a high-volume environment
• Consistently met or exceeded quality and call center expectations (average handle time, aux time, hold time, etc.)
• Worked as an escalated call team member, handling customer escalations at a supervisory level
• Reviewed and responded to concerns raised by our mortgage company clients about customer escalations, drafted timelines and complaint responses

Verification Specialist

Assurant Specialty Property
Springfield, OH
06.2001 - 10.2001

Data Entry:

• Provided responses to prompts from an optical recognition program to ensure proper disposition of insurance documents.
• Forwarded insurance documents to an Autoprocessing Facility to so that maintenance could occur in automated fashion
• Forwarded exception documents via queue to processing teams for manual handling

Mail Services

Assurant Specialty Property
Springfield, OH
03.2001 - 06.2001
  • Responsible for opening mail manually and by machine and sorting mail by document type and client

Education

Transfer Program

Clark State Community College
Springfield, OH

Photojournalism

Kent State University
Kent, OH

Skills

  • Business Management
  • Regulatory Compliance
  • KPI Management
  • Administrative Oversight
  • Customer Relations
  • Employee Development
  • Verbal and written communication
  • Staff Management
  • Program creation and implementation
  • Client Service
  • Negotiation
  • Hiring and staffing
  • Project Management
  • Partnership Development
  • Team Oversight
  • Business Planning
  • Relationship Building

Accomplishments

  • Achieved multiple promotions within Assurant Specialty Property
  • Received regular client compliments for my performance, care and professionalism as Client Relations Manager
  • Awarded a bonus in the form of company stock for my outstanding performance during the implementation of a new client

Affiliations

  • Clothing Design
  • Graphic Design
  • Multi-Media Art
  • Landscaping & Hardscaping
  • Gardening
  • Hiking and Camping
  • Home Improvement
  • Volunteering

Timeline

Member Owner

Lifebar, LLC
08.2023 - Current

Client Relationship Manager

Assurant Specialty Property
10.2014 - 01.2023

Business Unit Manager

Assurant Specialty Property
09.2006 - 10.2014

Call Center Team Lead

Assurant Specialty Property
03.2004 - 09.2006

Call Center Representative

Assurant Specialty Property
10.2001 - 03.2004

Verification Specialist

Assurant Specialty Property
06.2001 - 10.2001

Mail Services

Assurant Specialty Property
03.2001 - 06.2001

Transfer Program

Clark State Community College

Photojournalism

Kent State University
Zachary Johnston